A MID-VICTORIAN MAHOGANY AND SATINWOOD MARQUETRY LIBRARY TABLE

細節

A MID-VICTORIAN MAHOGANY AND SATINWOOD MARQUETRY LIBRARY TABLE
The rectangular moulded top with concentric banding above the frieze conformingly decorated and with anthemion scrolls to the angles, above two trestle end-supports with downswept channelled outer-supports terminating in claw feet and central plinth support with anthemion and further foliage panel and with central tablet of two confronting dolphins, joined by a flat stretcher with central roundel flanked by anthemion decoration, on a rounded rectangular base and conforming bracket feet
51½in. (131cm.) wide; 29½in. (75cm.) high; 32¾in. (83cm.) deep

拍品專文

The library-table's plinth-supported trestles have scrolled and moulded trusses terminating in bacchic lion-paws, while Venus's dolphins embellish the tablets of their ribbon-ties, and are inlaid like the palm-flowered arabesques of their central pilasters. This Renaissance inlay relates to that of the Italian bookcases executed in walnut and boxwood in the 1860s to the designs of George E. Fox for Charles Somers Cocks, 3rd Earl Somers' (d.1883) library at Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire. Similar decoration and dolphins featured in John Dibblee Crace's proposal of 1877 for a library at Longleat, Wiltshire, where Fox was also employed earlier in the decade (Longleat, Guide Book, Somerset, 1996, p. 47).